The metropolitan administration of Vietnam’s capital Hanoi proposed to the government to build new metro lines at an investment of $40 billion up to 2050 to ease the notorious traffic congestion in the city.

About $15 billion have been earmarked for three metro lines for the period up to 2025 of which two are already under construction.

The first three lines include the Noi Bai-Nam Thang Long section and Thuong Dinh-Ring Road 2.5-Buoi (Metro 2), the Van Cao-Hoa Lac section of Metro Line 5 and the Nhon-Troi-Dang Phuong section of Metro Line 3 which are listed amongst the priority infrastructure investments from now until 2025.

After that, metro construction will continue in another two phases, with spending of $3.56 billion for 2026-2030 and $21.32 billion after 2031. Overall, the network will have nine lines at a length of 318 kilometers and will initially carry 200,000 passengers per day.

Construction will take place in public-private partnership projects, where private firms will pay to get feasibility report done, hire consultants, clear the ground, dig tunnels and complete other construction work. Hanoi will pay for the trains, equipment, control systems and the management.

As of now, five domestic and two foreign investors have registered for the metro line projects including the Vingroup, Xuan Thanh Group, Russia’s OJSC Mosmetrostroy and South Korea’s Lotte Group.

Hanoi started construction on its very first metro line, the Cat Linh-Ha Dong line or Metro 2A, in 2011 with the support from a consortium of Chinese companies headed by the China Railways Sixth Group. Completion is expected for 2018 after many delays.

Pillar have also been erected for the Nhon – Hanoi Station line, or Metro 3, but the implementation of the project is already delayed by four years compared to the original schedule with completion now expected in 2021.